/r/interdisciplinary is intended to be a place for those involved in or curious about interdisciplinary areas to share and discuss their studies/work, and for inquisitive minds to learn about areas outside standard rigid curriculums/specializations.

So ask away and answer away. Let your curiosity be satisfied on the intrinsic and extrinsic values of interdisciplinary training.

Guidelines

Please be polite and civil when commenting, and as always, follow the reddiquette

Background

The 20th century was host to the seeming demise of polymaths in the face of the need for specialization due to explosive growth, in the sciences and otherwise. Recent years, however, have seem a surge in interdisciplinary enrichment, from students taking multiple majors to astrophysicists working for hedge funds and pure mathematicians modeling the brain.

In a futile attempt to try to kickstart this discussion, I propose that limiting the definition of polymath to any particular set of skills defeats the purpose. In my opinion, the whole point is that your interests will interact in interesting and unexpected ways.

Nice, some activity on here. I'd say that given the sheer amount of knowledge out there these days, you ought to pick and choose. I, for one, have about 10 real interests that I'm cultivating ranging from creative writing to biomedical science. It would be cool if there were some sort of checklist out there, but I think it's best defined for yourself. Thoughts?

Consider some of the prototypical polymaths in history: Da Vinci, Leibniz, Goethe... It is not enough to be proficient in multiple areas. For example, Leonhard Euler was a prolific mathematician who made advancements in several fields of mathematics. But his work was mostly confined to math (and perhaps physics) (although his work has applications in many sciences). Polymathia is achieved by one who masters several superficially unrelated skills. In your mind they probably will be unified in some way, but the classic set is one of various different skills that have not much overlap.